Internal Drive or External? For Final Cut
- Thread starter amiga500
- Start date
Nick Walters
Mentholated Member
Personally I'd say go internal every time you ask this question...others may disagree, but for me the only time I use externals is for capturing in the field and transfering data/footage from one place to another.
Internals are generally cheaper, faster, and more reliable. Cheaper cause there's no extra hardware to make it work outside a computer. Faster because you can more easily choose a specific drive that meets your speed needs. More reliable because theres less of a chance of knockin it off your desk.
Internals are generally cheaper, faster, and more reliable. Cheaper cause there's no extra hardware to make it work outside a computer. Faster because you can more easily choose a specific drive that meets your speed needs. More reliable because theres less of a chance of knockin it off your desk.
USB2 will not handle uncompressed video. I doubt FW800 will handle uncompressed.
An internal SATA drive, on balance, is faster than external FW.
An internal SATA drive, on balance, is faster than external FW.
amiga500
Active member
internal drives are first option. since i have a bazillion external firewire drives there are many times where i will need to hook one up to do something to an older project (that has been moved off of my internals) and for the most part i am totally ok with their performance and usually get what i need from the external.
with that said if you are going to get externals i suggest that you get ones that have a fairly fast "seek/access" time. all of mine (more than i care to count) are between 8.5ms - 8.9ms seek. the only ones that are not are some "lacie's". IMO the worst drives i have ever bought are the Lacies's. i have always gotten way too much stoppage with these drives.
currently i have been buying OWC mercury elites (most are quad interface). 7 1-TB and the rest 500gb's. overall very good performance. out of 12 i have had one go belly up. out of two OWC "neptunes" i have had one go down...twice even after being repaired by OWC. i will send it back again and request a whole new drive this time. their warranty repair service happens at the speed of light though and the company is as good as it gets.
EZ Quest Cobras (firewire 400's & 800's)...about a dozen of these drives (dont even know if they are sold anymore). never a failure. very solid performers.
old "Club Mac" firewire 400's (from a pretty long time ago)...at least 15 of these and never a failure.
FD Fantom Drives...4 of these little cheapies...they scare me they look and feel so cheap but never a failure.
Lacies "BIG DISC" 500gb's dual platter...i have 3 or 4 of these and i hate these with passion! slow compared to OWC and Cobras. they feel temperamental if that possible to feel from a hardrive.
Lacie 120gb...yeah this is pretty old but compared to the cheap clubmacs that i used to buy this is a POS. i think its seek time was around 11-12ms. junk and temperamental as well.
one G Tech 500 dual platter....works good but wouldnt pay the premeium they were asking for again.
this is mostly what i am buying now...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/FWU2ES2HDK/
now i buy 4-5 1-TB bare SATA drives at a time for usage with the above link. i will put a 1TB in my computer, work on the project, then pop it out for storage and put a new one in. i will put a bare drive into this gizmo when i need to access something but dont want to have to reload onto an internal. by the way it is full capable of working from this as well since i have it hooked up for firewire 800.
david
www.davidprobst.com
with that said if you are going to get externals i suggest that you get ones that have a fairly fast "seek/access" time. all of mine (more than i care to count) are between 8.5ms - 8.9ms seek. the only ones that are not are some "lacie's". IMO the worst drives i have ever bought are the Lacies's. i have always gotten way too much stoppage with these drives.
currently i have been buying OWC mercury elites (most are quad interface). 7 1-TB and the rest 500gb's. overall very good performance. out of 12 i have had one go belly up. out of two OWC "neptunes" i have had one go down...twice even after being repaired by OWC. i will send it back again and request a whole new drive this time. their warranty repair service happens at the speed of light though and the company is as good as it gets.
EZ Quest Cobras (firewire 400's & 800's)...about a dozen of these drives (dont even know if they are sold anymore). never a failure. very solid performers.
old "Club Mac" firewire 400's (from a pretty long time ago)...at least 15 of these and never a failure.
FD Fantom Drives...4 of these little cheapies...they scare me they look and feel so cheap but never a failure.
Lacies "BIG DISC" 500gb's dual platter...i have 3 or 4 of these and i hate these with passion! slow compared to OWC and Cobras. they feel temperamental if that possible to feel from a hardrive.
Lacie 120gb...yeah this is pretty old but compared to the cheap clubmacs that i used to buy this is a POS. i think its seek time was around 11-12ms. junk and temperamental as well.
one G Tech 500 dual platter....works good but wouldnt pay the premeium they were asking for again.
this is mostly what i am buying now...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/FWU2ES2HDK/
now i buy 4-5 1-TB bare SATA drives at a time for usage with the above link. i will put a 1TB in my computer, work on the project, then pop it out for storage and put a new one in. i will put a bare drive into this gizmo when i need to access something but dont want to have to reload onto an internal. by the way it is full capable of working from this as well since i have it hooked up for firewire 800.
david
www.davidprobst.com
Last edited:
Dingos8mybaby
Well-known member
Not if you're using a RAID. :thumbsup:
FW RAIDs are not always faster than fast internal single drive SATAs.
It is dependent on how you set up that RAID.
I get 205 MB/s with a two drive internal SATA software RAID. I doubt you can achieve the same with a FW RAID
Nick Walters
Mentholated Member
I love RAID, but I love internal RAID
Of course I have a tower that is INSANELY large, so I'm more able to do large arrays.
I actually don't have much experience with external RAID, and doubt I ever will....the price is right with internal...
Of course I also understand that not everyone comes from a computer tech background like myself. I build, fix, upgrade, and maintain all my own computers, so I've got a bit of an edge....I suppose the ease of use of external stuff is what some people need.